Is Owning a Caravan Park Profitable? An Operator’s View

Short answer: yes, caravan parks make money. The longer answer is the one that matters, because “profitable” can mean two very different things — a park that turns a profit, and a park that turns a profit without eating every hour of your life. Those aren’t the same business, and the gap between them is where most of the real story sits.

What a caravan park actually earns

At an industry level the numbers are healthy. The Caravan Industry Association of Australia’s State of the Industry 2026 report put caravan park revenue at a record $3.3 billion in 2025, up about 7% on the year before. Demand for drive holidays and regional stays has held up, and well-run parks in good locations do well out of it.

A word on the big numbers you’ll see quoted, though. That $3.3 billion is caravan park revenue specifically — not the $12.6 billion of total caravanning and camping expenditure across 17.3 million trips, which also covers vans, fuel, food and everything else. And if you see a figure of “10,000-plus caravan parks in Australia”, treat it carefully: it comes from an industry category that lumps caravan parks in with holiday houses and other accommodation. The actual number of caravan and holiday parks is closer to 1,500 to 2,000. It’s a smaller, tighter industry than the headline suggests.

Where the margin goes

Revenue isn’t profit. On a regional park, the money leaves in fairly predictable places:

• Staff and caretakers — reception, cleaning, grounds, after-hours cover. On a smaller park this is often you, which we’ll come back to.
• Maintenance and upkeep — amenities blocks, roads, trees, water and power infrastructure. It never stops, and deferred maintenance just moves the bill to next year with interest.
• Utilities — power, water and waste, and a lot of it through peak.
• Booking and card fees — online travel agents and payment processors take a cut of every stay.
• Seasonality — many parks earn most of their money in a few months and carry costs through the quiet ones.

A park in a good spot, run tightly, holds a solid margin. But “run tightly” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The cost that never shows up in the P&L

Here’s the number no accountant will put in front of you: your own labour.

If you’re the one doing reception, cleaning the amenities, mowing, taking the after-hours calls and doing the books, then the park’s profit is quietly subsidised by unpaid work — yours. The P&L looks healthy because the biggest cost, the owner’s time, is priced at zero.

That’s fine for a while. It stops being fine the first time you want a week off, get sick, or simply want your evenings back. A park that makes money while consuming every hour of its owner’s life is a different proposition to one that runs without them — even when the two show an identical bottom line on paper.

Why it shows up when you sell

This is where owner dependency stops being a lifestyle question and becomes a money question. When you go to sell, a buyer and their accountant will look at how much of the business lives in your head. A park that runs on documented systems — where a manager or caretaker can step in and it keeps working — is worth more, and sells faster, than one that only works because you’re standing in it. The unpriced labour that flattered your P&L for years quietly discounts your sale price at the end.

So, is it profitable?

Yes — but ask the better question: profitable, and able to run without you? That’s the version worth owning. It’s also the version that survives a bad season, a health scare, or a caretaker handover gone sideways.

If you’re not sure which version you’ve got, the honest test is simple: could your park run for a week without you in it? Most owner-operators already know the answer, and it’s usually no. That’s not a failing — it’s just the next thing to sort out.

Related: how to run a caravan park · the free 48-Hour Caretaker Handover Kit · a free caretaker agreement template